


New Life, New Beginnings.

by Proskenion



Series: Lully's Song. [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Alternate Universe, Beginnings, Bittersweet, Characters Introduction, Domestic Fluff, Gen, Slavery, soft, some sort of fluff, world building
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-23
Updated: 2020-03-23
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:20:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23281633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Proskenion/pseuds/Proskenion
Summary: Lully is a young girl of 18. She was a noble once, but after her mother has been charged and emprisoned for treason, she looses her name and priviledged. She is now a nobody, and she is sent to serve as a slave girl to a distant relative, Priest Scaron Bonifay.
Series: Lully's Song. [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1674253
Kudos: 4





	New Life, New Beginnings.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [My Beautiful Girlfriend.](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=My+Beautiful+Girlfriend.).



> HULLOOO ! 
> 
> Another Original Work, woohoo ! Guess what ? This was also kind of inspired by a dream I had lol. I can't remember the dream though, and I just built something new intirely based on the very vague memory of the said dream…
> 
> This is just a beginning and there will be more to come. I'm also more than happy to answer your questions and take requests! I don't promise to write everything you ask about but I definitely will consider it and write it if it inspires me! 
> 
> Enjoy :)

"So, it's you. I was excepting you... well, I don't know what I was excepting to be honest. What's your name again?"

"Lully."

Lully was standing awkwardly on the other side of the priest desk. She had gone by a longer name once, but this time was over now. The man was Scaron Bonifay, and according to some obscure sources from an unknown solicitor, he was Lully's last living relative, a distant cousin of her father she had never heard of. Scaron was sitting at his desk and watching the girl carefully.

"So, I've been told you're some cousin of mine."

"Yes, sir," Lully mumbled. So she has been told, too.

"Don't think this will give you any privileged treatment."

"No, sir."

Scaron eyed the small suitcase at her feet.

"Is that all you've got?"

"Yes, sir."

"Fine. Go down to the kitchen, Ninon will show you your room. And take those rags off and burn them, Ninon will give you more suitable clothes."

Lully pinched her lips, offended. But she said nothing. She bowed and took her suitcase. Before she could leave the room she heared the priest call her name. 

"Yes?" She said, turning to face him.

"From now on you will refer to me as Master."

Lully couldn't help the angry tremble of her nostrils. She swallowed, and nodded before hurrying out of the room. She pretended she never saw the man's satisfied smirk at her reaction. Going down to the kitchen, she gathered her wounded pride and tried to hold it intact. She wouldn't burn her dress, that's all she had left from her former life. And if this man thought he would break her spirit easily, she would prove him wrong. 

She found Ninon in the kitchen, cutting vegetables for diner. Ninon was a middle-aged woman with tanned skinned and calloused hands from a life of serving other people. She was the one who had welcomed Lully and brought her to Bonifay's study. When the girl entered the kitchen she glanced up, without stopping her work. 

"He said you would give me clothes and show me to my room," Lully declared. She waited by the door for the woman to finish slicing some parsnips in silence. Ninon wiped her hands on her apron and invited Lully to follow with a sign of her head. The young girl lifted her chin and followed. She knew the older woman found her demeanour too princely, but she could not help it. Old habits were hard to lose. And she did not see why she should lose them, anyway. 

Ninon led her through endless stairs until they reached a long corridor. At the end of it, Ninon opened a door. 

"In here," she said. 

Lully came in. The door was barely big enough for the small bed, the chair and table it contained. On the table was a small basin and a pitcher, on the bed a dark green dress similar to the one Ninon was wearing. Lully swallowed. 

"Thank you," she said to Ninon with a warm smile. She didn't want to make an enemy of the woman. After all, they would spend a lot of time together from now on. Ninon nodded in acknowledgment. Lully came in and Ninon closed the door behind her. 

Lully looked around and sighed. She put her suitcase on the chair and sat on the small bed. 

"So, this is home now," she whispered. With another sigh, she let herself fall on the bed and closed her eyes.  
When she realised she was dozing off she shook her head and sat up. She opened her suitcase. There wasn't much inside, she couldn't save much of her belongings - a white nightgown, a notebook, and hidden in a handkerchief, a pocket watched. She took it, stroke it softly with her thumb, and put it to her mouth to kiss it. 

"Father," she whispered against the metal of the watch. 

She barely remembered him, she had been so little when he died. But all her memories of him were sweet like honey and warm like summer sun. She sighed, and put the watch back in the handkerchief and hid it under her mattress. She wasn't meant to have it but she had managed to save it from the guards raiding her former house. The thought of it filled her with bitterness. She had to watch as her house was pillaged, her own property burned down or took away, and all this for what? For the crime of someone who was nothing to her except by blood. As she often did, but today more than ever, she wished the fate had taken her mother from her instead of her dad. She took the nightgown and the notebook out of the suitcase before kicking it under her bed, as if trying to kick those painful memories away with it. But the memories would not go away that easily. 

Lully Poquelin, that was her name, the name she had inherited from her father - the name her mother had stripped away from her. That was the price to pay for treason. Berenice Poquelin, and her daughter with her, had been deprived of her title, and all the priviledges and belongings that came with it, had been deprived of her liberty, and had been deprived of her name. And because she could not have that name and the position that went with the name, her daughter and all her descendant could not have it either. Again, Lully found herself full of rage and bitterness. Laws were cruel and unfair, as well as deeply stupid. Berenice had never been a mother to Lully, being always away and leaving her to the care of countless nannies and other slaves. Lully had never enjoyed the happiness of sharing her life with a mother, but in disgrace she had to share her fate. And now, here she was, forced into slavery for a supposed cousin she had never heard of, while Berenice rotted in jail. She kicked in the chair in frustration.

Her gaze fell on the green dress. She realised she was probably expected to change and go down to the kitchen again to receive her instructions. She delicately took of her own dress, the simple act of it stinging like crazy in her heart, as if she was taking off her own skin – the last remnants of her former life. She folded it, put it in her suitcase that then went under the bed again, and put the green dress on. She left the room without a look back. 

In the kitchen she found not only Ninon, now busy to cook the vegetables in a black cauldron, but a young girl that must have been about the same age than her. Ninon introduced her as Athalia, and asked the girl to show Lully around. Athalia nodded, and asked Lully to follow with a shy smile. 

Athalia showed her all she had to know about the slaves quarter, where to find the things she would need for cleaning, where was the laundry done, and so on. Then she said she could not show her the house yet because they were not allowed upstairs at that time of the day, but tomorrow they would go cleaning together. Lully nodded quietly at every new piece of informations she was given. Lully noticed how the girl behaved, with her head always a bit down, her hands usually clasped in front of her, her voice always soft and respectful. She wondered if she would end up behaving that way too, in the end. In response to that thought, she lifted her chin proudly. 

At the end of the tour, Athalia explained that Ninon was the first maid and that both herself and Lully were under her direct command. Then there was Alceste, the gardener, and Jules and Philippe, the two stable boys, working under Alceste’s order. And there was Argan, the master’s valet and secretary, the most important of the master’s slave and the most priviledged. He was the only one to be allowed a real room, next to the master’s, and his commands and desires counted almost as much as the master’s. Again, Lully nodded. 

First maid, gardener, stable boys… Simple words, Lully thought. No matter which title you give them – _us_ – in the end they are nothing else but slaves. Even that Argan was, no matter how important he might think himself to be. 

"Now we should go back," Athalia said with her sweet voice. "Ninon will need us." 

Lully nodded and followed. But just before they entered the kitchen, she called :

"Athalia ?"

The girl turned to her, her face slightly down. Lully observed her. She realised the girl had not look at her in the eyes just once yet. She asked :

"Athalia, what do you know about me ?" 

Athalia glanced up, so swiftly it was barely visible. She cleared her throat, and said :

"I know… I know you were not always a slave. I know you were like the master once."

"I was never like him," Lully replied, a bit too sharply. She noticed the slight flinched in Athalia’s body. The girl was afraid, Lully realised. She felt like she might have feel in front of a noble. _What I am, was._

"Look at me, Athalia. Please." Slowly, the girl looked up. Lully smiled. "I was a noble, it is true. But after my mother was condemned for treason, I lost my titles and name. I am just like you, now. I hope we will be friend." Lully had never disregarded or disrespected any of the slaves she had known – after all, her slaves had been her most trusted and beloved companions - _family_ \- through her whole life. She would not start now, especially not with a gentle girl of her age that could so easily become a friend. She would need friends here. 

Athalia smiled back, visibly reassured already. "I hope so too," she answered. 

Later that night Lully met the other servants. All except from Argan. As Bonifay’s valet, he had little to do downstairs with the others. Alceste was younger than she had imagined, and he was the funny, jolly kind. Philippe was only slightly younger, when Jules was barely much more than a child.

When Lully went to bed that night, she felt a strange, bittersweet veil wrapping her heart. Her life would never be the same now. But despite what she had thought, she started to believe she might find some sort of happinnes here. She reached for the watch under the mattress. She hold it tight in her hands, against her chest. She fell asleep like that, half through a little prayer she addressed to whoever would listen.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading ! Questions, suggestions and reviews are more than welcomed :D <3


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